The President of the Maldives says.... Meyna School is Great!

It's 5 years from now... 2016 ... the President of the Republic has recognized Meyna School for its outstanding work in significanting improving the academic achievement of its students.  A group of reporters is coming from Male to interview you.....

Thus started the Practical Vision workshop... a visualization to get the participants thinking about what they wanted to achieve in the next five years.

We looked at the five year plan through the lens of the Workshop Question.... and...

Through the lens of the Focus Question, the planning committee had developed.

The scene changed now from 2016 back to 2011.   Individual participants were to brainstorm what they had seen going on at the school in the year 2016.  What was the school being recognized for?  What innovations had the 5 year plan helped to bring about?  What role had they, members of the workshop played in the plan and what were they most proud of?

Write BIG, one IDEA per half sheet, 4 to 6 words.... okay, brainstorm your ideas and write them down!

The groups passed up their top five.... which I read and placed at random on the wall.

Before long, the wall took on a new look!  Half sheets of paper with all of the accomplishments of Meyna School in the year 2016!

The facilitator's nightmare.... rolls of tape.  Rolls and rolls and rolls of tape to put on the back of the half sheets, with the hope they will stick to the wall....

Initially with so many half sheets on the wall, we looked for similar ideas and put them in pairs.... then into clusters..





As the clusters became rows, I put a symbol at the top of the rows.... made it easier for the workshop participants (and me) to add new cards.  All they had to do was either tell me which symbol (boat, palm tree, tuna, etc.) or draw the symbol on their half sheet before they gave it to me.

The participants were very engaged in this aspect of the workshop as they reviewed the cards and decided which cards should be in which rows.



Rows and rows and rows of data!  First the sun symbol on blue paper in the middle row, then the row is given a title... Local Resourses



Reading through each of the rows of cards, I asked the participants to name the row based on the accomplishments they'd seen in the data.... give the row a title in other words.

This is a powerful step in the Practical Vision part of the workshop.  Some struggles took place in terms of trying to decide what was behind the obvious data on the half sheets ..... leading to the accomplishment and therefore an appropriate title.

A happy colorful wall..... The Wall of Wonder on the left and the Practical Vision on the right.



All good and well to have a fun time stroling down Meyna School's rich and colorful memory lane, but what does this tell us about the future?  What can we learn from the past?  What are the implications for the future?

Room set up - the day before the strategic planning meeting

Okay... what's the plan? What section of the workshop goes on what wall?  Where do we start.... hmmmmmm

The Wall of Wonder can go over there on the left.... then the Practical Vision could take the right side of the back wall.

Then..... let's see......

Lots of headings for each part of the workshop need to be written and placed up on the walls.....

This tape better work!  The masking tape I just tried, kept the heading up on the wall all of about 3.5 minutes.... that just isn't going to cut it!





Just keep adding more and more rolls of tape to the backside of the header.  I know, I know.... it's taking forever.... but..... how else to keep the headers stuck to the wall?

Then in addition to all the rolls of tape on the back, tape the whole outer edges to the wall.

Never used so much tape in my life to get a piece of paper to stick to the wall!

Tape behind the header, tape around the header, tape and tape and tape and tape and tape..... this is a nightmare!

Anil, one of the expat English teachers, is helping me prepare the room for the workshop.  He's the one who is cutting all the stock paper for the headings.

Anil's writing is much better than mine, and so he's also making the header cards.

More tape!  More tape!  More tape needed!

So.... Mr. T..... since it looks like Anil is cutting the paper, writing the headings, and taping them to the wall..... what are you doing?

Supervising... can't you tell!  The Commitment and Strategic Directions can go right over on that wall.